Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Cold Pursuit Blu-ray Movie Review

Denver ain't no Fargo.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 13, 2019

Note to aspiring actors: if your casting agent approaches you with a role playing a family member of a character slated to be played by Liam Neeson, you might want to read the entire screenplay first, just to see what may happen to your character and/or to discern how long you're actually going to be in the film. As was perhaps most memorably exemplified by the Taken 3-Movie Collection, characters related to a character played by Neeson don’t always tend to fare very well, and that’s once again the case with regard to Cold Pursuit, a kind of cheekily humorous take on the kind of action adventure revenge thriller that Neeson has become so closely associated with. Cold Pursuit is an Americanized remake of In Order of Disappearance, a film which posited Stellan Skarsgård as a character named Nils Dickman. In perhaps just one sign of how cheeky Frank Baldwin’s screenplay can be, the character is now named Nels Coxman, but other outlines of the story are pretty much the same in both formulations. Coxman is a snowplow driver in the fictional town of Kehoe, supposedly near Denver, keeping a vital link passable and earning him a Citizen of the Year Award. His seemingly happy life with wife Grace (Laura Dern) and son Kyle (Micheal Richardson) is sent into chaos when Kyle turns up dead, apparently from a heroin overdose. (One “relative” down — aspiring actors may want to stay tuned.) Coxman is suspicious, as he’s certain Kyle didn’t have a drug problem, and while Coxman doesn’t really have a “particular set of skills”, once he finds out the truth behind his son’s death, he erupts into a fury of vengeance, taking out a series of people involved in his son’s death, something which kind of improbably ignites what amounts to a gang war in the snowy climes of an isolated wintry community.

The problem with so-called “black” or “dark” comedy tends to be tone, and though Cold Pursuit ports over the original version’s director, unfortunately Hans Petter Moland doesn’t always seem to know how to “translate” his vision into the confines (maybe even strictures) of a big budget Hollywood affair with major stars. In Order of Disappearance managed to more carefully navigate the arguably “impassable” route of this story, keeping a deliberately off kilter subtext more properly compartmentalized. Here, the comedy kind of bubbles up occasionally, but the darkness seems more forced, and therefore more artificial feeling.

The darkness extends to both of the Coxman parents’ inability to deal with their son’s demise. Grace pretty much goes haywire, and is in fact one of the first in the film to “disappear” (the film utilizes the original’s title for a rather, yes, cheeky final credits roll where all of the actors’ names vanish, “in order of disappearance”). Coxman himself seems ready to commit suicide, until a confession from one of Kyle’s friends alerts Coxman to a nefarious drug dealing operation in this wild land run by a bad guy named Viking (Tom Bateman). Coxman of course decides to hunt down Viking in an act of retribution for what amounts to Coxman’s son’s murder. As should be expected (at least for fans of the Taken franchise), Coxman has to wend his way through a series of interstitial characters, and you can pretty much guess what happens to all of them. Unfortunately, Viking is (initially) unaware of Coxman’s pursuit and instead mistakenly believes that the deaths of his henchmen are attributable to another drug dealer named White Bull (Tom Jackson), which leads to that aforementioned gang war.

It’s obvious that Moland is going for a kind of Coen-esque Fargo sort of sensibility, but the film never attains the giddy heights of the earlier entry, and in fact it is too overstuffed with dead ends and subplots, including what is kind of ironically a kidnapping aspect, with Coxman as the abductor, in what might be seen as the “flip side” to the Taken films. There are bits here that work rather well, but the entire film seems like an uncertain balancing act between more straightforward action elements and kind of fitful stabs at pitch black humor. An interesting cast is arguably under utilized here, including the two putative female stars, Laura Dern and Emmy Rossum (as the local “Marge Gunderson” of this story).

Note: My colleague Brian Orndorf was even less enthused about Cold Pursuit than I am. You can read Brian's thoughts here.

Cold Pursuit Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Cold Pursuit is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. The IMDb lists a couple of Arri Alexa models as having digitally captured the imagery, and I'm once again assuming this was finished at a 2K DI. (As always with my reviews, if anyone has authoritative data to the contrary, message me and I'll update things.) Considering how dark and snowy so many scenes in this film are, detail levels are rather high, though as can perhaps be gleaned from some of the darker screenshots accompanying this review, things are a bit murky quite a bit of the time, with fine detail levels understandably not reaching the same heights as in more brightly lit moments. Gradings are rather interesting here, with some expected cool tones helping to elevate the feeling of winter and bleakness, but some respites of warmth showing up in daytime material and even some interior scenes that are sometimes bathed in ambers or golds. Close-ups reveal the weathered crags of Neeson's face, and fine detail on elements like fabrics can be quite precise looking. Some fleeting CGI can look fairly soft, including a final punchline involving a hang glider.

Cold Pursuit Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Cold Pursuit's Dolby Atmos track is perfectly fine in and of itself, but it may not completely "wow" audiophiles who want constant engagement of the Atmos channels. The best moments here tend to be in the outdoor scenes, where a glut of ambient environmental effects really helps to establish the rather treacherous conditions of Kehoe, and the "kill" scenes, where bursts of sonic activity populate the surround channels, including some kind of fanciful and occasionally even goofy sound effects. I just didn't hear a ton of vertical activity in this track, though there are occasional wafts of sounds like blizzard-like winds that are clearly placed overhead. Dialogue and score are both rendered effortlessly on this problem free track.

Cold Pursuit Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Welcome to Kehoe: Behind the Scenes on Cold Pursuit (1080p; 26:49) has some fun behind the scenes footage and decent interviews.


• Interview with Liam Neeson (1080p; 8:46)


• Interview with Hans Petter Moland (1080p; 8:20)


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 5:23)


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1:09)

Cold Pursuit Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Cold Pursuit might have worked at least a little better if some of the overstuffed plot dynamics had been pared down, and also arguably if the film had really had the courage to go for its gonzo comedic proclivities more fully. Neeson is kind of weirdly engaging in this role that more or less makes fun of some of what has become his screen persona, but the film never quite manages to balance itself artfully between black humor and more aggressive action adventure elements. Technical merits are solid for those considering a purchase.